Elementary File Browser "Marlin", Available To Install Via Ubuntu PPA

Marlin is a new file browser for GNOME developed by ammonkey (who's also behind Nautilus Elementary) for Elementary OS.

Marlin is now available in the elementary os daily PPA along with Slingshot-launcher, Wingpanel and so on so you can finally install it easily in Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10. But please note that Marlin requires GTK3 so while it can be installed under GTK2 (Ubuntu 11.04 without GNOME 3), you'll have to use a theme that works under both GTK2 and GTK3 like Zukitwo.

Important: Marlin is currently under development and hasn't been released yet. The version in the PPA is for testing purposes only!

Marlin looks a lot like Nautilus Elementary: the breadcrumbs looks pretty much the same (though they work differently in Marlin), you can hide the menu and by doing so, a new button is displayed in the toolbar, there's a toolbar editor and so on, however, there are a lot of different things too. For instance, in Marlin you must hover to select a file after an update, selecting files is done by clicking the "+" icon and opening files / folder is done using single-click. This can be changed in its preferences though. You can deselect a file by clicking the "x" icon:

Also, besides the regular icon and list view, there's an extra view which replaces the "compact view" in Nautilus, called "columns view" (this is actually default):

If the window size is small, the file info pane is displayed at the bottom (as you can see in the first screenshot), however if the window is large enough, this moves to the right and gains a few extra "open with" buttons:

Unfortunately I'm very busy today so I've only tried Marlin for about 5 minutes, but here is a short video to get an idea about Marlin:

(the video is still being processed so the quality should improve soon)

Update: the video was updated so you can see another interesting Marlin feature: typing the path in the location bar without having to toggle between text-mode / breadcrumbs. In the updated video you can also see the toolbar customization dialog, something which also exists in Nautilus Elementary.

Install Marlin in Ubuntu 11.10 / 12.04

Please note that Marlin is experimental software so it may not work and there are features missing for now, so use it at your own risk!

Add the Marlin Daily PPA and install Marlin using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:marlin-devs/marlin-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install marlin

Then launch Marlin from the menu.


What do you think?

Thanks to chimerarevo.com for the news!